


Aloof

by twoseas



Category: What We Do in the Shadows (TV)
Genre: Canon-Typical Content, Getting Together, Guillermo and Nandor have their usual drama, Happy Ending, M/M, Post-Season/Series 02 Finale, have another post theater get together, we deserve it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-30
Updated: 2020-07-30
Packaged: 2021-03-06 05:40:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,907
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25618234
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/twoseas/pseuds/twoseas
Summary: After the massacre at the theater, Nandor demands a return to normal and Guillermo tells him exactly why he can’t.Featuring Nandor and Guillermo sorting (and shouting) their feelings, Sam the familiar, and Nadja very much not wanting to die at the hands of vampire assassins.
Relationships: Guillermo de la Cruz/Nandor the Relentless, Laszlo Cravensworth/Nadja
Comments: 37
Kudos: 179





	Aloof

**Author's Note:**

> What We Do In The Shadows is one of my favorite shows, so I’m thrilled to finally finish a fic for it. Guillermo is a delight to watch and I can’t get over how dumb and bisexual all the vampires are. It’s perfect. 
> 
> Please, enjoy!

The vampires followed Guillermo through the house and down to the cramped space that used to be his room. He ignored them, silently grabbing the mini fridge and maneuvering it back out to his car. They watched him load it into his trunk, fidgeting and wide eyed in their fine going out clothes. 

“Guillermo,” Nadja called in her forcibly sweet, absolutely concerned voice. “Will you be coming back after you do with the cold box whatever it is you plan to be doing with it?”

“I’m…” Guillermo glanced up at the awkward looking group of vampires. Colin Robinson’s eyes flashed blue as he smiled at the other three. “I’m not sure.”

“Oh, ok,” she said high pitched and friendly. “Well, we would be very happy if you did come back, Guillermo. You could even take a room upstairs, yes?”

“No,” Laszlo blustered. “I would not be bloody happy to have a slayer under our roof! As erotic as that little display with the stakes and the murder happened to be…”

Nandor hissed and Nadja stuck her husband with the point of her elbow. He grabbed at his ribs with a pained exclamation everyone ignored. 

“Now, now,” she continued with a big smile. “Do not listen to my dumb, fat headed, stupid husband. I, for one, would quite like to have a nice, friendly slayer around for when the vampiric council sends more assassins to murder us in our home.”

She spat the last bit at Laszlo, a warning in the baring of her fangs and narrowing of her eyes. 

“Oh.” Laszlo blinked, caught off guard at the reminder. “Yes. Well, I suppose that’s rather true, my darling. Giz- Guillermo. Do, uh, feel free to return promptly. Preferably before sunrise if that’s no imposition, old boy.”

Guillermo closed his trunk and sighed, feeling the heavy burden of responsibility fall on his shoulders. He needed to protect his vampires. 

“Yeah, ok,” Guillermo conceded. “Just let me get this to my mom’s.”

Nandor, who had been silent since his outburst about laundry, visibly startled. “You will come back?”

Pinching the bridge of his nose, Guillermo nodded and cursed his weakness. He couldn’t look at Nandor while he said, “Sure, but not as a familiar. I’ll live here, I’ll keep an eye out for vampire assassins. But that’s it. Just think of me as a roommate.”

“Of course,” Nadja agreed at once, giving one of the cameras a thumbs up. 

“Naturally,” Laszlo shrugged, though his mouth did form a moue of distaste at the word roommate. 

“Unacceptable,” Nandor declared immediately, fangs bared. “You will be my familiar, you will resume your duties, things shall go back to normal!”

“What are you doing, you big, dumb, arsehole?!” Nadja hissed. “Do you want to be tied up with the silver ropes and forced to watch the shitty play and then be decapitated?!”

“It  _ was _ an absolutely mediocre production,” Laszlo shuddered. “Nary a boob or bits and bobs in sight. Imagine if that was truly the last bit of theatre we saw before our demise. Appalling. I’d almost welcome the axe.”

Nandor crossed his arms and nodded sharply, head held high and imperious. “I have spoken, my decision is final.”

“Oh, fuck you,” Guillermo breathed, mouth dropped open in complete incredulousness. He gawked at Nandor and the sheer audacity of it all. “I just killed an entire theater of vampires to save your life and all you’ve done to thank me is complain about laundry and order me to go back to being your servant!”

“Apologize to the vampire slayer  _ on our side _ , Nandor,” Nadja ordered, eyes flitting between Guillermo and Nandor in worry. 

“Never!” Sniffing haughtily, Nandor tossed his hair and looked away. 

“I can’t believe you,” Guillermo laughed, hysterical and awestruck in the worst way. “I really can’t believe you. You know what, sorry, but I’ve changed my mind. I’m not actually coming back. I’ll see about assassin proofing the house and I’ll leave my phone number in case of emergencies. I’ll even find a new familiar. I know a guy, he’s really good. He’s not  _ actually _ a guy, he’s a cat, but he’s in between masters right now and…Anyway, whatever. I’ll be in touch.”

Glowering and feeling his heart shredding in a million little pieces like the world’s saddest confetti, Guillermo tossed the vampires a sarcastic salute and climbed into his car. As he pulled out of the driveway, he tried not to take a look back at Nandor. 

He didn’t succeed. 

— — — 

Sundown the next day found Guillermo walking Sam to the house as he explained the ins and outs of the place to the cat. 

“You’ll pick up on it fast,” Guillermo assured him. “I think you might be the best familiar I’ve ever seen.”

“Meow,” Sam thanked him. 

“And let me know if you can’t find anything, I’ve gotten used to the weird places they always end up putting things.”

“Mreow,” Sam acknowledged. 

“I’m pretty sure Nadja and Laszlo are cursed when it comes to familiars, but I was Nandor’s familiar for eleven years, so I don’t think he’s cursed. We’ll just say you’re the house familiar to be safe, don’t you think?”

“Tchk,” Sam chittered his agreement.

“Oh, and if you ever need some spare change, Nandor keeps a money dish. Sometimes he puts in old coins instead of, you know, usable money, but I’ll occasionally sell one off to collectors online and that pretty much sets the house up financially for a few months - or more depending on the coin.”

“Mrurp.”

“You’re going to do great,” Guillermo smiled. 

Sam answered by rubbing against Guillermo’s ankles and purring like a chainsaw. 

“So, you are back after all,” came an unhappy voice from the darkness beside the door. 

Lips thinning, Guillermo did his best to keep his voice calm and his expression contained. “No.” At that, Nandor scowled, lip curling. “I’m just here to introduce the new house familiar. Nandor, this is Sam.”

“Oh.” A bemused furrow to his brow, Nandor stepped out of the shadows and looked down at Sam. He waved his hand in a short, stilted motion. “Hello there, Sam. I am Nandor the Relentless. Pleased to meet you.”

The door opened and Nadja and Laszlo came out, their gazes instantly caught by Sam, who was sitting next to where Guillermo stood, tail curled daintily around his body. 

“Is this him?” Nadja squealed. “The familiar?”

“This is Sam,” Guillermo confirmed. “Sam, this is Nadja and Laszlo.”

“Quick, darling,” Nadja urged, tugging on Laszlo’s sleeve. “Let us show Sam inside before Colin Robinson returns.”

“Right this way, chap,” Laszlo welcomed with a grand sweep of his hand. “We’ll give you the tour.”

Sam rubbed against Guillermo’s ankles one last time before trotting in after the other vampires. 

Peering around the door with a stern scowl, Nadja jabbed a finger at Nandor. “Fix it or else!”

The door closed on her order, final and resounding. 

Nandor shifted his weight between his feet, an uncertain expression revealing just the tip of his fangs. “Guillermo.”

Already on the defensive after the night before, Guillermo crossed his arms and ducked his head, feet shoulder width apart. “What?”

“You have become so disrespectful,” Nandor tsked, looking away. “With the swearing and the bossy bossy and the killing vampires when we are not around. Yeesh.”

Sighing out all his frustrations, Guillermo looked up to the sky for patience and was met with light polluted darkness in its stead. He made to leave down the walkway, possibly for the last time. “Goodbye, Nandor.”

“Always with the leaving,” Nandor grumbled, a melancholy edge to his words. “Fucking guy. Fucking  _ leaving _ guy.”

Turning on his heel, Guillermo leveled Nandor with his most pointed stare. “You do understand why, don’t you?”

Nandor didn’t answer, instead checking out his nails and the rings on his fingers. 

“Unbelievable,” Guillermo whispered.

He stomped off, his tattered heart left to the mercy of the wind. 

“I don’t get it!” Nandor declared in a shout, looking as surprised as Guillermo felt at the sudden answer. He marched after Guillermo, cape dramatically flaring out behind him. “I give you the day off, I give you the breaks, but still you left!”

The anger seemed to burn out of Nandor, the vampire slumping over as he said, “Were you really that unhappy, Guillermo?”

It took a substantial amount of Guillermo’s willpower not to move forward and comfort Nandor. But he remembered what instincts like that got him before, so he bit back the desire. “Yes,” he admitted, throwing his hands out helplessly. “I was.”

“You had the day off, the breaks, the sharky tanks, the pillow for beating off purposes,” Nandor listed again. “What else do you need?”

Guillermo took in Nandor’s lost expression and pity sapped most of the resentment he felt for his former master away. 

“I need a lot more,” Guillermo admitted, finally telling someone who wasn’t behind a camera the thoughts that had begun to eat away at him. “I want to be a vampire so much that I wasted over ten years of my life serving vampires who didn’t even know my name. Do you know how pathetic that is? I don’t have friends, not really. I don’t see my family often at all. I have no job, no savings, no dreams and ambitions. Everything I did was to be a vampire and I have nothing to show for it.”

“Though I do not think you deserve it after such insolence and abandonment, I promised to turn you. Do not rush me,” Nandor scolded crossly, nose scrunching up in distaste. “Look at you, doubting your master.”

“You’re not my master anymore, Nandor.” Nandor flinched at the reminder, but Guillermo pressed on. “And that’s not the problem. Say you really do turn me-”

“I will!”

“-But what would happen after I became a vampire? I’d have nothing to my name. No place to go. No one to spend an eternity with. I’d be left like Benjy in Pittsburgh or something, alone and empty. At least Benjy lived a full life! Thirty years old and what do I have?”

“You have me,” Nandor suggested with a dismissive huff, head turned away. 

Tears stung the corner of Guillermo’s eyes. He was hearing exactly what he wanted to hear, just in the wrong tone and for the wrong reasons. “No, I don’t,” Guillermo ground out through a throat that felt full of dust. 

He coughed to clear his voice. 

“I’d like to,” he admitted, pitched low like he was afraid of being caught speaking the words aloud. “But I don’t. You don’t like it when I’m around, you don’t let me join in with the group, you scold me when I get too familiar. I brushed your hair, cleaned the house, found your victims, disposed of their bodies, polished your swords, took care of your clothes, and helped you into your coffin. I did all of that for eleven years and you didn’t even like it when I sat too close to you.”

Nandor tried to interrupt, but Guillermo pushed on. 

“You didn’t know my last name until last night, you didn’t know how long I worked as your familiar, you didn’t even want to hear my deathbed confession when I thought Colin Robinson was going to drain us all into nothing. Which was about having Van Helsing blood, by the way, not that it matters to you.”

Sniffling through his feelings, Guillermo spoke past the threat of tears and laid it all out there. “I’d like to stay,” Guillermo admitted. “It wasn’t all bad all the time and I remember the good stuff too. Playing chess and laughing at Nadja and Laszlo. The glitter portrait. Holding me up so I could pretend to fly or dust the chandeliers. Saving me from Topher. Stuff like that. But for every good thing there was another instance of you pushing me away or disrespecting me or, I don’t know, being… just being too aloof!”

“What?” Nandor breathed, jaw slackening. “Guillermo, what did you say?”

“Did you seriously not listen to any of my heartfelt confession?!” Guillermo screeched. 

“No! Calm down with the yelling,” Nandor scolded with a wince. “Of course I listened, it all upset me greatly. I do not recognize the feeling I am feeling, but I think upset is the right word for it. I mean for you to tell me again the last thing you said.”

“Oh,” Guillermo blinked at the unusual bit of candor. “Uh, I said you’re too aloof.”

“That’s what I thought you said. Too aloof,” Nandor muttered, a hand coming up to his temple. “Too aloof?! How is this possible?”

“I mean…” Guillermo trailed off with a frown, eyes searching Nandor’s shell shocked expression for some indication of why this struck him so intensely. “I kind of listed off how. Basically you made me feel unwanted and uncared for and like a burden despite the fact I was the one doing almost all the work around here.”

Nandor’s head snapped up, an enthusiastic grin forming under his beard.

“This is why you left?” Nandor stepped into Guillermo’s space. There was a manic brightness to his dark eyes that had Guillermo stepping back. His former master usually only looked that way before biting into a fresh virgin so Guillermo felt justified in his wariness. “My aloofness?”

“Yes?” Guillermo stretched the sibilant out slowly as Nandor moved closer and closer, practically pushing Guillermo against the brick wall at the base of the stairs. “There were other factors, but mostly the aloofness, yeah.”

Nandor closed the space between them so they were chest to chest, eyes boring into Guillermo’s as he loomed over him. 

Guillermo gulped. 

“Nandor?”

“Prepare yourself for the opposite of aloofness,” Nandor whispered fervently. 

Cold lips were pressed against Guillermo’s, the kiss forceful and passionate and just…fucking great. 

“Oh,” Guillermo squeaked. He blinked up at Nandor, dazed and confused and entirely enraptured by his former master’s sultry smirk and hooded eyes. “Um.”

“Yes,” Nandor nodded, leaning in for another kiss. “This is better than the aloofness, don’t you think, Guillermo?”

Guillermo’s answer was a muffled noise of pleasure and surprise, his hands reaching up to grip the edges of Nandor’s cape like his life depended on it. 

— — — 

Nadja grinned smugly at the camera. “Everything has worked out perfectly,” she purred, hands orchestrating a graceful movement to punctuate her statement. “Guillermo is back and protecting us from being murdered.”

“Sam has been a better familiar than even our dear Topher,” Laszlo continued. He waved to a small diorama that took pride of place on the side table, a scale model truck and miniature Laszlo figure just visible within the bar parking lot scene. “He made me this lovely sculpture in honor of Jackie Daytona.”

“Such nimble paws,” Nadja hummed happily as she adjusted her skirts. “And after my threat Nandor has fixed the situation and reclaimed his manhood with Guillermo. The scent of groin sadness is long gone.”

“It really has turned out brilliantly,” Laszlo said with some surprise. His mouth quirked lecherously. “Not to mention quiet, little Guillermo has proven to be quite the animal in the ol’ boudoir.”

“We hear things,” Nadja stage whispered. 

“And walk into things,” Laszlo added, waggling his eyebrows. “The fancy room was very fancy that night, this I can assure you.”

— — —

Sam stared down the camera, lamp like eyes blinking slowly. 

“Mreow.”

He bent his neck to lick his paw, the scritch-scratch of his tongue on fur just barely audible. 

Finished with his paw, Sam settled into the armchair, front paws folded symmetrically beneath his chest. 

“Mrawwp,” Sam yawned, pink tongue flashing. 

— — — 

Guillermo smiled shyly. “Things have been…pretty good. Nandor and I are together now. I mean, we still have our problems, nobody’s perfect. But yeah, things are a lot better.” 

He giggled to himself. 

“There’s a lot more kissing. Which is nice.”

Adjusting his glasses, Guillermo shrugged his shoulders modestly. “And I finally get to work through my vampire fantasy list, so that’s amazing.”

— — — 

Nador beamed at the camera, holding up a thick journal with multi color post-it notes sticking out from the side. “This is Guillermo’s list. Had I known my Guillermo was such a perverted, sensual creature, I would have abandoned the strategy of aloofness earlier.”

“I am from a different time,” Nandor admitted with more seriousness, lowering the journal and setting it on the table. “When I ruled my beloved country of Al Quolanudar, it was expected that I be aloof and distant. I was not to be rolling around in the mud with the rabble. To show attachment was to show weakness and weakness meant-”

Nandor drew a finger across his throat with a harsh, drawn out noise. He then went on to mime putting a head on a pike and mounting it at the castle’s gates to be booed and heckled by rotten food throwing citizens. 

“Obviously not something I would enjoy,” Nandor finished with a flamboyant wave of his hand. 

“However, it is a new time and I am glad Guillermo told me my aloofness was not welcome,” Nandor grinned, fangs on display. “And that I do not need to hide my affection for Guillermo any longer for fear of him recognizing the softness of my heart and abandoning me in disgust.”

A fond, undeniably soft smile made Nandor’s features younger and more handsome. “He really is nothing like my many wives.”

**Author's Note:**

> Nador, holding his bloody swords aloft: There you have it, one dead vampire assassin! I have vanquished the enemy and protected our home and territory. Are you proud of your warrior boyfriend, Guillermo? Have you ever beheld such power and skill? Does your body heat with desire at my prowess?  
> Guillermo, inching sideways to hide the eleven dead assassins in the hall behind him: Oh, yup, umhmm. Amazing job, Nandor. Body...totally on fire.  
> Nandor, deflating: I can see the corpses of the slain behind you, Guillermo.  
> Guillermo: Oh. Sorry. Well, I am still very proud of you, Nandor.  
> Nandor, choking up. Okay-a. Thank you, Guillermo. That is nice.


End file.
